The Bet
by MaidenStar
Summary: When Simmons loses a bet to Fitz, she must pay the price; cleaning duty, an admission of Fitz's superior intellect, and worst of all, to hear Fitz describe it, what was going to be the most embarrassing date of her life. It doesn't go to plan, however, and not at all in the way either of them expected. (Set at the Academy and based on a Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode of the same name).


**A/N: I would like to apologise for this. I'm not even sure what it is. I only know that thanks to some bad influences, I've gotten far too obsessed with Brooklyn Nine-Nine recently and ever since watching E13, have wondered about a similar FitzSimmons scenario. This is what happened.**

**As ever, if you have a spare moment, please do let me know what you think, it's always greatly appreciated!**

* * *

She rolled her eyes as he strolled into the lab half an hour late, nonchalantly throwing his jacket over his chair at their station and flashing her a grin that was far too flippant for 8:30 in the morning. Or any time, for that matter.

"Today's the day, Simmons," he announced happily, settling into his chair and turning on his laptop.

"If by that you mean, today's the day you're going to lose, then yes it is," she answered, working to keep her tone as disinterested as possible as she bent over her microscope.

He merely laughed in response.

"Hey Peters," he called, and at the station furthest from them, a young man with sandy hair and a questionable taste in ties turned around.

"Yeah?" he shouted back.

"What does that board say?" Fitz asked, pointing at the whiteboard nearest to Simmons.

"Uh, Fitz twenty-three, Simmons twenty-one?" Peters replied, confused.

"Thanks," Fitz shouted back, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at her.

"All evidence suggests that _you'll_ be the one losing, Simmons," he said, "you've only got until three o'clock this afternoon."

"I submitted one blueprint to Professor Vaughan and _three_ to Professor Harrison yesterday. They were _very_ impressed and both assured me I'd have confirmation of their approval by no later than two o'clock," she replied smugly, fishing some test tubes out from one of the cupboards built into their shared workstation. "What are you working on today Fitz?" she asked innocently. "Oh yes, nothing."

The flippant grin was back.

"Don't think you've won just because you stayed up working until stupid o'clock the other night," he told her, his whispered aside of _'nerd_' still loud enough for her to hear (_'ever heard of pot, kettle, black _Leopold_?_'). "I've got a more than solid contingency plan. I'm going to win Simmons, you might as well give up now."

She narrowed her eyes at him. He _was_ disturbingly unperturbed by her announcement of four new prototypes. Telling herself it was just a show, she shrugged her lab coat off.

"Well _I'm _so confident, I'm going to make coffee. And I'm such a gracious winner, that I'll even make some for you."

She turned on her heel and walked out of the lab, ignoring him as he shouted,

"Make sure you don't forget the three sugars! I want my coffee to taste as sweet as my impending victory!"

* * *

She absently stirred an obscene amount of sugar into his coffee (sadly, he hadn't been joking, he really did have an unnatural and mildly worrying sweet tooth) and felt a gentle nudge on her arm.

"Hey, earth to Simmons," a voice laughed and she found herself looking at a familiar face. Emily Sanderson had been the first person Simmons had met at the Academy, her room was on the same floor as Simmons's and they'd attended their welcome lecture together. They largely ran in different circles now, but even a year later, Simmons still enjoyed seeing her in the lab, or in classes.

"Sorry", she said, rinsing the teaspoon under cold water. "I was miles away."

"The bet?" Sanderson asked, spooning coffee into her mug. Simmons nodded by way of reply.

By now, everyone who had the same lab slots as she and Fitz knew about their bet, mostly because it had been made _during_ a lab session at the start of the semester.

* * *

_[Three months previously]_

"Fitz," she laughed, shoving him playfully. "You're in my way." She tried to squeeze past him to reach the centrifuge but, being Fitz, he refused to budge.

"Simmons I need this space," he chuckled back, spreading his things out over the countertop and preventing her from putting her equipment down. She tried to make space for a few petri dishes, but he'd managed to get his body fully in the way and it was to no avail.

"Why are you such an idiot?!" she exclaimed, still laughing.

"Idiot? No," he shook his head. "You need to understand, Simmons, that the superior scientist should always have more work space." He was laughing too as he tried to find ways to block her without using his hands (they currently holding a small bundle of wires and circuit boards), and the commotion attracted the attention of some of the other students at workstations nearby, a few of whom shared knowing looks.

"Which is why _I_ need it!"

"You? I was referring to me."

"Please, clearly I'm the superior scientist Fitz."

"You? It's not April Fool's Simmons, good try."

"You're so horrible to me, why am I even friends with you?!"

"The truth hurts Simmons, what can I say?"

And thus began the argument of who was a better scientist. Since they were both the highest achieving Academy students ever, there wasn't much point going by grades alone and, besides, they excelled at different things and it was hard to compare. By the time they'd mulled over a few different ways of proving who was the better scientist, half of the room was listening and throwing out suggestions.

"Why don't you just keep a tally of how many designs you submit to different professors?" James Park, Sanderson's lab partner, suggested eventually. "If they get approved for SHIELD use, you get a point. See who gets the most points and call that person the winner. Plus the more design approvals you get, the better your end of year write up will look."

"Yeah but they work together a lot too, loads of their inventions are joint efforts," Sanderson pointed out, abandoning her experiment to join the others at FitzSimmons's bench.

"So?" Park shrugged. "Just don't count joint inventions."

"And what's the point of winning?" Sanderson asked. "Bragging rights are great but shouldn't the stakes be a bit higher?" she pointed out, raised an eyebrow pointedly. "What would be the worst thing that could happen if you lost?" she asked Fitz slyly.

"Aside from losing to Simmons?" he asked, dodging a punch aimed at his arm. "It doesn't matter," he shrugged. "I'm not going to lose."

"Well, if you're really that confident, I have always admired that limited edition Star Wars boxset of yours," Simmons said.

A small trace of surprise flickered over Park's face.

"Fitz, they only made like a hundred of those things! It's numbered!"

Simmons watched as Fitz considered the offer, a trace of doubt evident in the back of his mind. Eventually however, he set his jaw and nodded.

"Fine. But the odds need to be equally high for Simmons."

Everyone thought for a moment, Simmons had no possessions with her that Fitz would have wanted in equal intensity, and money didn't seem to have quite the same threat. Then, an amazing, awful thought crossed Fitz's mind. Since he and Simmons had met and grown close, half of the people they knew at the Academy had speculated and even gossiped about their relationship, some teasing them about acting like an old married couple, others asking outright what their deal was. Fitz personally found the whole thing amusing (and was also a little flattered by the idea that Jemma would ever harbour any romantic interest in him). He knew that Simmons, however, found it rather embarrassing, getting inexplicably flustered whenever it was brought up.

He could think of one thing that would make Simmons feel as terrible as he would feel losing the DVDs.

"Our last lab session is on the last day of the semester," he began slowly. "If Simmons has less successful inventions than me by then," he turned to address her directly, "then you have to go on a date with me."

The shocked, embarrassed look on her face was almost enough for him to leave it there. He knew she was thinking about all the extra teasing, the renewed gossip, the wrong assumptions that they were in a relationship. He decided to try his chances anyway.

"Like a really, really terrible one. I get to pick what you wear, where we go, what we do, all of that. Oh, and you'll have to tell me that I'm a better scientist than you, and clean up my side of the lab for a month."

He watched as she considered it, a light blush covering her cheeks. Eventually, she brought her attention back to the three people in front of her.

"Those odds are not equal. I'll agree, but you'll have to throw in your Classic Who boxset and your signed poster. Oh and you can go to all of Vaughan's lectures for a month and take notes for me. Really detailed ones." She stuck out her hand. "Do we have a deal?"

He shook it firmly.

"Deal."

* * *

At two o'clock, as promised, Jemma received an email confirming that all of her prototypes would be useful to SHIELD, and were being approved for production.

Happily changing the scores on the board and regaining a lead she'd held for a week solidly, she proceeded to confidently plan out where she'd hang her new poster, and what she'd do in the time she wasn't at Vaughan's tedious lectures.

Fitz, however, refused to take the bait and instead, half an hour later, wandered silently out of the lab, only returning a few minutes before the end of their bet. He came to stand in front of her, clearing his throat ostentatiously until she looked up from her lab report.

"Yes?"

"Simmons," he began grandly and she sighed. "You may recall that I was half an hour late this morning. There is a good reason for that," he said.

"Please," she interrupted. "You're almost always late, you're such a terrible person in the morning –"

"Yes, well, as I was saying –"

"And, you know, in the afternoon and the evening, and sometimes the night too, but yes, please continue," she smirked.

"_As I was saying_, the reason I was half an hour late this morning was that I had gone to see Weaver personally about this great idea I've had for these machines which could provide different types of analysis at mission sites. I made up some blueprints recently for these well, I'm calling them dwarfs so we'll go with that. Weaver was very impressed, as always," she rolled her eyes and coughed loudly. "_Alright_. I asked her how quickly she could get them approved and," he dragged out the final word as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolding it and holding it up for her to see.

Weaver's loopy signature was clearly visible at the bottom.

"I just got the confirmation. And, uh, Simmons, you know why I'm calling them dwarfs?" he asked and her heart sank.

"Oh God. It better not be because –"

"There are seven of them, that's right!" he exclaimed, moving over to the whiteboard and scribbling his new total under his name.

"So with just twenty seconds until the alarm we've had set all semester goes off, that makes the score twenty-five for you and thirty for me, it's time to accept your fate, Simmons!"

A moment later and the alarm on his phone beeped loudly, earning him a high five from Park as she sank down on her chair, groaning.

"Bad luck Simmons," Sanderson said sympathetically.

"I'm sure you'll do better next time," Fitz told her, not bothering to feign sadness. "And now for the first of your many forfeits," he said expectantly.

She winced. Why did he have to be such a sore winner? All she'd had planned was to take a bunch of his most prized possessions and lord it over him for the rest of his life.

"Leo Fitz is a better scientist than me," she murmured.

"No," he shook his head gravely. "Not good enough. Try again."

"Leo Fitz is a better scientist than me," she repeated, a touch more loudly.

"Peters didn't hear you."

"Leo Fitz is a better scientist than me!" she half-shouted, attracting the attention of anyone who had somehow missed the commotion from a moment ago.

"Why thank you, Simmons," he said, revelling in her discomfort. He reached under his desk, and handed her a bag. "Here, as promised, is your outfit for tonight, or some of it anyway. You can choose what else you wear,"

"_Thanks_," she said sarcastically, taking the bag and peeking inside.

"Anytime. And no, no looking until you get back to your room," he grinned, settling down to write up reports for an hour during which he played a pre-prepared playlist which, in his words, 'featured such classics as Celebration, We Are the Champions, Simply The Best and The One and Only. You probably won't like it Simmons, it's for winners'.

* * *

Well, pride cometh before a fall and fallen she had. So, so far. She'd earned highest achiever, most promising and most responsible titles at her school, and graduated top of her class at Oxford, and yet to look at her now, in a t-shirt proudly emblazoned with the words 'Leo Fitz is a better scientist', you'd never believe it. There was a knock at the door and she pulled a jacket on and buttoned it up despite it not being cold outside. Picking up her keys, she was unsurprised to find him waiting outside, dressed frustratingly normally.

He frowned when he saw her. "Didn't you like the shirt?" he asked seriously.

"I loved it," she quipped back playfully, "I can't wait to take this jacket off and show it to the whole world."

"Sooner than you think, Simmons," he laughed.

This, essentially, translated to him telling her to remove her jacket the moment they stepped outside. Cursing, she draped it over her arm, hoping she could try to hide her awful shirt. She hadn't considered that his picking her up at six o'clock coincided perfectly with everyone making their way to the canteen for dinner. As it was the last day of term, everyone was in high spirits, and no one at all was working.

She tried to duck her head down not only to avoid being seen, but to hide the redness of her cheeks. She knew Fitz was only joking by instigating this date, knew it was all part of the bet and of the sudden, playful, jovial shift in their relationship, but it didn't stop how she felt about the whole thing. Being teased about their secret relationship, their so-called marriage, their friends-with-benefits set up, or whatever it was their friends and peers would joke about had always been a source of amusement for Fitz. For her part, she'd always had something of a complex about it. He'd always teased her that the whole thing made her flustered, but she was fairly sure (and inordinately thankful) that he had no idea of the _real_ reason why any talk of her and Fitz dating made her so agitated…

His hand on her shoulder, and the damned t-shirt, attracted more attention than she was comfortable with and it was a relief to leave the grounds of the Academy and board a rather empty shuttle bus into town.

For all his earlier bravado, Fitz only gloated about his victory three times as he lead the way through the city, but she knew it would be too good to last. She groaned audibly when they stopped outside the restaurant in which they'd be eating. She _hated_ seafood, and Fitz knew it.

They were quickly seated, although the waiter who showed them to her table eyed her t-shirt more than once. Fitz told her that he had made the reservation a week ago when he began making progress on the dwarfs, admitting that he hadn't been too sure who would win until then. He chose red wine when the waiter asked about drinks, aware that it was her least favourite and she perused the menu, knowing that she would have to choose something she could at least tolerate or risk him choosing something he knew she hated. There was a prawn starter, she could manage prawns.

They ordered and when the wine arrived he loudly toasted their date, drawing the attention of a few nearby diners. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the placemat in front of her, grimacing as she swallowed back some wine, but otherwise ignoring the sharp, unpleasant taste and wishing she'd thought to order water. Eventually their food arrived and she poked unenthusiastically at the prawns on the plate. He smiled at her, the same cocky, irritating smile from before, and asked why she wasn't tucking in more quickly.

"We've got a very long, very embarrassing night ahead of us," he told her and she didn't disbelieve him.

Before they were even able to get started on what she was sure would be a delicious starter for any seafood aficionado, however, a young man burst loudly into the restaurant and several people cried out in surprise. He was wild eyed, breathing heavily and covered in blood.

"C-can someone help me?" he shouted and there was an immediate hush across the whole restaurant. "My friend's been stabbed!"

She was up and out of her seat without giving it a second thought, followed by Fitz and several other concerned diners as the man led them outside.

"I'm a medic," she said vaguely, aware that it wasn't worth explaining that she was a qualified field medic for a secret government organisation, thinking that the man wasn't likely to care about semantics right now. "Tell me what happened," she instructed, kneeling beside the crumpled figure lying just outside on the sidewalk in a steadily growing pool of blood. The man obliged quickly, his voice quivering with every word.

A small crowd of people had built up, and only increased thanks to the diners who had left the restaurant. She turned to a concerned waiter.

"Can you try and move these people along?" she asked. "He doesn't need an audience." The waiter nodded. "Can someone find any clean towels or bandages from the restaurant?" she shouted, "and if it hasn't already been done, someone needs to call an ambulance and the police!"

She immediately set about trying to expose the wound, a deep, jagged cut across the man's chest which was gushing an alarming amount of blood. Fitz suddenly felt both rather hot and rather faint.

She threw a concerned glance over her shoulder, knowing too well his disdain for anything gory.

"Fitz, look after this man's friend," she told him, "he needs someone to comfort him." He nodded, heading over the man in question, who was currently kneeling beside Simmons.

"Come on," he said gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. "He's in safe hands," he said, looking at her with an unreadable expression before guiding the man to a spot a few feet away, sitting beside him.

Someone arrived a moment later with a stack of freshly washed towels and she immediately began packing the wound and applying pressure. The man was still barely conscious, and she spoke distractedly to him as he worked.

"I'm Jemma," she told him quietly. "I'm going to look after you until the ambulance gets here."

He managed to croak out that his name was Joe, and a word of thanks, and she hushed him gently and told him to focus on breathing evenly, squeezing his hand for the briefest of moments. Time passed as if someone had pressed fast-forward and what felt like a moment later, she heard sirens approaching, and suddenly she was handing over the towels to the paramedics and stepping back, providing one with her name and details. She quietly mentioned her qualifications and the paramedic nodded in understanding, thanking her and moving away.

She cast around for Fitz, and found him hovering nearby. He was looking at her with an expression that made her breath catch for a second. It was a mix of pride, awe and…something akin to affection. She looked away shyly as she walked over, pulling off the gloves someone had dug up from a first aid kit somewhere.

"How is he?" Fitz asked grimly.

"The paramedics think he'll be okay." She suddenly felt completely drained.

"Sounds like that was down to you," he said proudly, smiling at her strangely and it looked to her as though he was seeing her for the first time. "The friend was called Dan," he told her after a brief pause. "I gave him my phone number, told him not to hurry but to let us know how it all went when he could."

"Good idea." She smiled weakly at him. "Well," she said with a sigh, "it looks like this really _was_ a terrible date in the end," she said, sadly watching the ambulance drive away. She glanced down at herself, both her t-shirt and her jeans were covered in a lot of blood. "And the shirt's ruined," she said.

"It was stupid anyway," he shrugged. "And it was sacrificed in a very good cause."

By the time the police had taken their statements, the restaurant had sent most of its staff home. The waiter from earlier told them that someone had paid for their order, since they were doing such a good job looking after people and apologised that they weren't still serving food.

They stopped for pizza and then, without really discussing it, caught the next shuttle bus back to the Academy.

"Did you have any more horribly embarrassing things planned?" she asked lightly as they made their way back towards the dorms.

"Yeah lots," he sighed, "but it's all kind of been put in perspective."

She laughed humourlessly and they traipsed on in silence for a second.

"You…did amazingly tonight Simmons," he said eventually, breaking the hush that had descended. "I know that you know this was all a joke, but I don't think you're a worse scientist, or anything even remotely like that," he told her awkwardly. "You were completely brilliant, I'd never have stayed that calm." He had that look on his face again, the one that made her throat suddenly feel tight and stirred butterflies in her stomach.

"Thanks," she told him, faintly embarrassed. She'd only done what she'd been trained to do, what anyone in her position would have done. "You know," she smiled, "in spite of this bet, we actually had more joint inventions this semester than you had single ones. It makes the whole thing seem a bit pointless, really." Well, along with other, more obvious, factors.

He pondered this for a second.

"Yeah," he agreed eventually, the syllable drawn out into a long, pensive sigh. "I guess we always do work better when we work as a team."

In spite of all the praise and credit they'd both received for all the extra time they'd put into their inventions thanks to the bet, she couldn't help but agree.

"Maybe we should stick to that next time," she suggested as they slowed to a halt as they neared her door.

"Maybe," he agreed, smiling at her.

For a moment, and for the first time in a long while, she had no idea what to say to him. The comfortable silence stretched out into a longer, more awkward one, until she spoke the first words that came to mind simply to break the sudden feeling of tension that had welled up within her.

"Well, thank you for a terrible night," she joked and another smile ghosted across his face, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by a rather more intense, thoughtful expression. Had he suddenly stepped forward a few paces, or had they really been standing that close together? She realised that she'd maybe held his gaze for a touch too long. "And…y-you know for walking me home, that was…nice…of you…" she trailed off as he suddenly lent towards her.

The notion of kissing him, the very thought of it (and it was a thought she had entertained a lot), had become such a silly fantasy for her, such a well-guarded guilty little secret that moment _he_ kissed _her_, a whole surge of thoughts and emotions burst to life within her, her brain awash with chemical signals and her body indulging in countless new and pleasant sensations, her stomach suddenly writhing with nerves and excitement.

And yet, as kisses went, it wasn't her best, memorable at later dates only because she had been kissing _him_. She had been distracted by the realisation that he was kissing her and she hadn't given too much thought to actually kissing him back, and he seemed terrified of her reaction, or lack thereof, and pulled away after pressing his lips to hers for just a moment, drawing back a little too quickly in his nervousness.

He took a step back and ran one hand over the back of his neck, other hand in his jacket pocket and his head tilted so that he could look at the space directly in front of her feet.

"I'm, uh, I'm really sorry," he mumbled quickly, cheeks red. "I…I don't know what came over me, it was just after everything that happened tonight I…I shouldn't have done that. Let's just, let's pretend that it n – "

Although she knew full well what he was about to say, he never got the chance to say it.

She stepped towards him and, one hand resting lightly on his cheek and the other on top of his own on the back of his neck, she pulled him gently towards her. He had just one moment to catch her gaze, startled by this sudden movement before she was kissing him, properly this time, like she'd wanted to for a whole year.

He seemed even more shocked then, taking a few surprised steps backwards, until his back bumped into her door. A large, beaming smile curved at his lips and he responded eagerly.

Laughing a moment later as his nose knocked hers, she felt like she was in some stupid romantic film as she fumbled behind him, trying to unlock the door. She succeeded a moment later and, still laughing and feeling vaguely idiotic and entirely too elated, they stumbled inside together.

* * *

When her alarm woke him the next morning, it took him a terrified few moments to work out where he was.

Ever the morning person, she seemed more in control, reaching towards her nightstand to shut the beeping off.

"Why does your alarm go off this early?" he groaned, stretching and rubbing his eyes.

"Because some of us can't just roll out of bed with a minute to spare and quickly run our hands through our hair," she laughed, sweeping her fingers through his tousled curls as if to prove a point. "Also, some of us keep clothes in drawers and wardrobes and don't just pluck random things off the floor and hope they're clean."

He laughed, and they stared at each other for a moment. He wondered briefly if she'd always looked like this, so full of life, so radiant. He'd always known she was beautiful, of course. She was his best friend and he'd cared for her in that capacity almost the instant he met her, but it had taken the last few months, all the joking and the playfulness, as well as seeing the way she'd acted last night, for it to really sink in that he felt a whole lot more than brotherly affection for her. He'd been an idiot. It had taken a bet, a sham date and a medical emergency for him to realise that he didn't just love her as a best friend after all. He wondered, suddenly, if she thought the date had been a ruse to get her to sleep with him, and was suddenly worried.

"I…I just wanted to make it clear that the whole…date thing, it wasn't some huge scheme to…I didn't mean for…"

"I know," she interrupted him, smiling fondly.

"I mean…I…I'd want to do it again," he went on, oblivious to her amusement at his semi-panicked, awkward musings. "The…the date I mean. Not the, the, the well...you know. I mean that was great too I just…"

She decided to put him out of his misery.

"Fitz, stop. I know exactly what you mean," she smiled, leaning over to kiss him.

* * *

They arrived at their first class of the day together, having missed breakfast. No one around them batted an eyelid at their walking in together (it was a regular enough occurrence), as they selected two seats in the middle of the room.

There was a tap on her shoulder moments later.

"Hey FitzSimmons," Park whispered from the row behind. "How was the date?"

"Perfectly horrible," Simmons said, biting back a smile as she turned to face him.

"Yeah," Fitz agreed heavily. "I hope we never do _that_ again."


End file.
